Starting and Electrical Problems
 

Hello all. My brother has a 97 850 base and for the past year or so it has been draining batteries and now the car won't start at all. The biggest issue with this is that I am the family mechanic and I live in the Chicago area and he is at school at the University of Arizona, so every thing I know I am hearing is second hand at best. So here is what I know, and hopefully you all can give some possible solutions.

As I said, he has been going through batteries like cookies. When he dosen't drive the car for a week or two, its dead, but he's usually able to jump the car. The last battery he got was in October or November. After returning to AZ after the Christmas break, the car was 100% dead. He's tried jumping the car multiple times and wasn't even able to get any lights to come on.

Now my parents are down there and I talked my dad through some ideas I had to get power to the car. Jumping the car didn't work, but when he disconnected the battery cables and hooked the jumper cables directly to the battery cables, taking the battery completly out of the circut, he was able to get full power, but still not start the car. He's also tried to just charge the Volvo's battery and using a volt meter he is able to tell the 850's battery is able to hold a charge. He then tried to jump the car again and nothing.

The one odd thing is that when he tries to start the car is he gets nothing, the starter doesn't make any noise either. When I've had dead batteries, I've at least gotten a clicking of the starter trying to go, and when my mom's 850 had starter problems, it made an awful grinding noise. At last resort they will get the car towed to the nearest dealership, but the last time the car was there, they said it was just the battery, which I doubted from the start. Sorry for the uber long post.

If the battery is charging when it is connected to a donor car and also the lights work, then I would think it is an issue with either the start relay or the starter solenoid.

It also sounds like there is something really draining the battery too. Does he have any aftermarket electronics installed on the car?

There is nothing aftermarket on the car. My two thoughts for the battery being drained was that there was a light on in the car, like the light in the trunk, or the alternator is shot.

Two thoughts come to my mind:

1. Ck the interior glove box light; see if it's staying on.
2. Have the charging system ckd out by a competent auto electric tech (don't let the kid at Autozone ck it out). Have a feeling you will find a bad diode in the rectifier pack. Ck the alt brushes while in there too.

Beyond that, someone (who knows what they're doing) needs to ck for parasitic current draws and make sure the charging system is working correctly.

Let us know what you find. Good luck!

Well, my parents had the car towed to a dealership and it turns out it was the glovebox light. So many problems caused by such a tiny thing. The dealer also said the rear pads and one of the rear ABS sensors needs to be replaced, so they are going to do that as well. That should allow him to finish off the semester and get back home. The dealer also said one of the front suspension mounts/bushings was cracking, but I think that can wait until I can get my hands on the car to work on it. Thanks for the help guys.

Thanks for getting back to us.

Glad the mystery is solved!

Good luck.